Recently there have already been lots of discussions in this forum about what makes a certain culture superior or inferior to others, what has history shown and what are the reasons for it. Everyone came up with his own explanation, and in the end all explanations differed widely (climate, religion, mentality, genetics, even nutrition played a role). In the end it has always been Sub-Saharan Africa or black people in general as the best example of world history's worst performer.

Having lived in Tanzania, occasionally at a local family, with an African girlfriend (of Chagga tribe, got it? ), also deep in touch with other white people, Indians, Christian and Muslim culture, and a job at a psychiatry, I just didn't get around being confronted with a lot of questions, among other things why black people around the world perform so bad. The economic strength of southern Africa is at world's bottom, so is the social status of blacks in all mixed cultures. All the explanations basically swayed between these two extremes:

The first one was: “It is the aggressiveness of the non-black world, especially white European Western world, which doesn't allow black people to do any better. There is something like a (subconscious) racism among all Whites, that sets obstacles in front of blacks in order to let them be subdued, in small private as well as on international basis. In order to help the Pan-African World, we need to educate white people to let racism be and give black people the capital to allow them to do their own business.”

The second went like: ”Black people already had enough time to improve their conditions! Slavery, colonialism, and now even segregation are all long ago, Blacks had their opportunity! Ever wondered why black students and nations are doing so bad compared to other post-colonial people and countries? Asians are by far better! We can't deny differences in mental abilities anymore, but that doesn't imply blacks are less valuable human beings. We can live either side by side, or even in a harmonic symbiosis together, as we do with and therefor need our digestive bacteria.”


When hearing this my ears keep bleeding! And in either way I feel attacked. With this thread I don't want to give any answers, but just want to share some of my deep observations, experiences and impressions I have made with African culture, compared to European. Later on it will inevitable lead to the questions “Does it make sense to impose Western values on other cultures?”, “Is development aid necessary or helpful?”, “Are cultural differences based on genetic abilities?”. But we can go deeper into that later on! My impressions first:

Hierarchy
Not that Europeans don't know any hierarchy between social classes, people's age, sexes or ethnic background (YES, even that exists in Europe!), but in Africa it has completely different dimensions. The aims, thoughts and activities of people with a higher status, like of wealth, age, sex, clan status, are NEVER questioned. It is the sole right of the most powerful to do what ever he wants to, and all the others are his devoted subjects. For me it was always impossible to do a good team work formed out of a group of Africans, as the most powerful guy of the group was never questioned in his thoughts. As me being white, it were always my ideas unreflected taken over by the others.
Moreover, also crimes done by people of a higher status were often not questioned, as in this case it simply was no crime. So many things, regarded as crime in our eyes, like corruption, were no crime on African standards. Anyhow they are of course hidden in front of others, as the out-coming makes life more complicated. If the one in power shows any weakness, he will inevitable lose respect and soon his power.


Family Matters
Very simple and short, blood is heavier than water! It is the family, or further extended the clan, Africans feel devoted to, not the whole society or nation or unknown stranger. Even though national identities do sometimes exist, it is the family that goes first. Paying taxes for a welfare state that helps people far away you have never met, while at the same time your granny suffers alone with dementia at an old people's home? Unbelievable and unheard of in Tanzania! But on the other hand, if welfare and insurances do not exist, or you can't pay them, what other help do you have besides your family? Sadly this also applies to politics, were the families of politicians go first and political parties are based only on family bounds and friends, not on abstract ideologies

Showing objects of value
Understatement of valuables or success is something very European, or to be more precise, West and North European. If you have money or power in Africa, you show your money, you show your power! Africans are not very interested in investing their money in extended search of knowledge and abstract thoughts just for the sake of it. Money is invested in symbols, like clothes, women, notebooks, cars, houses, exclusive pool parties (if they can afford), not in travels or literature. Our romantic idea of the lone, free tramp, or the long-haired (why couldn't he afford a hair cut?) misunderstood rock musician is incomprehensible. And sometimes contemptuously looked down at. If the car or notebook doesn't work properly anymore, and you can afford it, you buy a new one! If you have the money, you don't even take much care about these objects.


Fate and Predetermination
There is not much responsibility Africans give to themselves. Everything that happens is due to fate. If a girl dies from genital mutilation, it wasn't because of bad hygiene, loss of blood or even the mutilation itself, but the will of God, Allah, or the spirits of the ancestors. Same if a driver dies in a crash after he was driving too fast and ignored somebody's right of way. Same to sexual protection. Same to structural engineering of buildings. The only thing that sometimes can have influence on these happenings is the use of witchcraft, which leads me to the next point.


Witchcraft
Probably the most hidden feature of African culture to outsiders, and if detected the least comprehensible, is the wide use of witchcraft. You will hardly find a Tanzanian who has never been to a traditional ghost healer. This applies to everyone, to the football player who wants to influence the upcoming game, to the politician who wants to put a spell on his opponent, to the man who needs the love powder to make the woman fall into love with him. Even when I was at the psychiatry the nursing staff tried to convince me the patients are bewitched or possessed by evil spirits. All of the staff except for one! My personal estimation is that about 95% to 98% of all Tanzanians believe in witchcraft. Even the educated and those who have studied in Europe. So if in Europe a patient says that his neighbors tried to bewitch him, he will get the diagnosis “psychosis”. If somebody tells this in Tanzania, he is most probable right.


Hierarchy, fate and witchcraft
Bad if these three meet together. As explained above, the one who has the power is the one who is right. If you don't have the power and are poor, you are subject to the thing which is called fate. But what if someone is business-minded enough and suddenly comes to a lot of money? And has more money than all the others? He surely used witchcraft in order to overcome his fate! So people will put a spell on him. And as everyone is always living with the fear to get bewitched, they won't even try to be better than their neighbors. Competition is non-existent then!


Perception of time and spare time
Last thing. If the plumber told me he will be there at one o'clock, I knew I can spend the whole afternoon at home with the hope he will arrive by four o'clock. If he has forgotten to come, I would call him and he will come some other day. Colleagues usually arrived at least one hour too late at work, and I did the same in order to win their trust. People didn't arrive at meetings. Buses didn't stick to the time schedules, if they even existed. The European view and value of getting attention by working so much, even in your spare time, until you burn out, is unbelievable and irresponsible in Africa. The problem is, production takes an awful lot of time with this.


Of all these things mentioned above, except for the last point, it applied to everyone. Even the intelligent and educated and those who have studied in Europe. And if they changed their views while having been in Europe, they fell into their old habits again when they got back to Tanzania. So I am pretty sure all these habits and believes stick to some point to culture and psychology, not to intelligence.


But could it be that Northern Europe has been regarded as underdeveloped, mentally retarded, lazy, superstitious and tribally obsessed by Southern Europeans during Roman times, the Barbarian Migrations and Middle Ages? The same part of Europe which now ranks among the regions in the world with the highest GDP? The same part of Europe that Richard Lynn now certifies the highest IQ in Europe? The same part of Europe that seems to have gained the highest IQ through natural selection since then, but physically hasn't changed a bit in the same range of generations?

I wish I could read all you just wrote

Maybe you're new here, and you missed all the African history threads made here(and across the internet) but, dude, you're living in the 1930s, please get caught up so you don't embarrass yoursrlf.
https://www.nairaland.com/1796503/traditional-african-boat-designs
http://historum.com/middle-eastern-african-history/58840-diversity-early-african-architecture-ruins-thread.html
https://www.nairaland.com/1249503/interesting-images-precolonial-early-colonial
https://www.nairaland.com/582176/benin-art-architecture/
Edo Kingdom(Nigeria)


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sungbo%27s_Eredo
Asante Empire(Ghana)



Kongo
[img]http://hitchcock.itc.virginia.edu/SlaveTrade/collection/large/VILE-180.JPG[/img]


Nsibidi(Igbo writing system)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nsibidi
More...
https://www.nairaland.com/189030/african-script
Production
http://der.org/resources/study-guides/blooms-of-banjeli-study-guide.pdf
[img]https://www.nairaland.com/attachments/1554585_african-productivity_jpeg73ad16662aab95c5e70965fc917f4ece[/img]
Bathrooms

Science and Tech
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_Africa
"Human sacrifice" was actually capital punishment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Benin_Expedition_of_1897
Human rights concepts
http://www.kentlaw.edu/faculty/bbrown/classes/HumanRightsSP10/CourseDocs/9BanjulCharterandtheAfricanCulturalFingerprint.pdf
http://eccentricyoruba./
http://www.postcolonialweb.org/nigeria/precolwon.html
http://www.postcolonialweb.org/nigeria/colonwom.html

I know its alot of links but its important for you to know. Plus the above is just West Africa/Cental alone!

Ways to help you out of your self-hatred and how to identify those in self-hatred as well.
https://www.nairaland.com/1179342/blacks-educated-feel-inferior-dr
And...

RandomAfricanAm: @kingston277
Thumbs up to you. That said you are going to run into the same problems with the self haters over and over. Typical broad issues are...
1. The attempt of translating African ideas/institutions into incompatible European intellectual containers.
2. A poor(lopsided) grasp of the general history of Humans and their activity through time.
3. A poor ability to process historical knowledge of Human activity through time to make insightful descriptions of todays society.
4. Misguided rationalizations exacerbated by issues #1-3 above.
5. Dogged stubbornness brought on by the idea that "I didn't come to this conclusion by an emotional fit, I came to a rational well thought-out conclusion". This being done under the more fundamental issue noted in #4
6. A poor "spiritual/emotional" relationship with the topic under discussion brought on by personal observation(school/real world) of that topic. While the rationalization serves as justification for the stated position; the spiritual relationship mediates which rationalization was stated in the first place.

RandomAfricanAm: Two major vectors of foreign cultural attack...

1. Media(music, movies, TV shows, websites, sports)
2. Returnees from the Diaspora(People associate the status of these people not merely with application of education; but also with hairstyles, speech, clothing, etc)
**I should also add the vestiges of the old colonial education system that's still in place**

Note: number 2 is the vector I have the most issue with concerning these self hating people. The most ironic display being the ones who complain about "backward superstitious people" who then basically attempt to devour other peoples culture in a bid to be like (insert perceived quality here). what makes that ironic is they are employing the same logic as a person killing a lion and devouring it's flesh in a bid to be like (insert perceived quality here). It's the same line of logic except concerning a different entity.

Note 2: Colonization provides the gapping hole for those cultural mores to take a stronger hold then they normally would otherwise. The self haters also seem to believe that the fact that the colonial period(that only lasted 50ish years ...spain was occupied for 800) occurred is a rationalization for their cultural "betrayal".

RandomAfricanAm: That sh*t is sad man. sad
The worse part is that they feel like they are being "realistic" "responsible" "progressive" or my personal favorite "civilized"(even though they completely miss the keyword *civil*) Automation & mechanization does not equal civilization; Automized & mechanized barbarians are still practicing barbarism. Simply put mechanized barbarism is still barbarism.

Neutral Example: When the tent dwelling, spear chucking, horse riding Mongolians sacked and overran china they were barbarians being barbarous. When the mansion/castle dwelling, rifle/cannon shooting, galleon/wagon riding Europeans sacked and overran china they were also barbarians being barbarous.

Self haters conveniently skip that and other episodes in world history nor do they dare say they the fact that china was overrun by a pack of tent dwellers on horse back means that they should stop city planning, administrative practices, civil engineering projects, etc. and accept the superior tent dwelling "civilization" that was obviously justified by chinas round defeat and occupation by Mongolians. Nor do they say that the Japanese should give up their Shinto tree, rock, etc spirits and become "civilized"(or in self hater language "industrialized", "mechanized", & "automized" ...which is what they really mean when they say "civilized"wink

As concerns my ideas surrounding African spirituality I suggest you checkout my reply on the second page of...
https://www.nairaland.com/1554976/whats-literal-translation-north-south/1


As I like to say...
1. Freedom is a necessity but not enough. Choices are predicated on what you know at the time of calculating a decision. If I control what you know I control the range of your possible choices.
2. Knowledge is a necessity but not enough. Knowledge derives it's usefulness from being processed when calculating a decision. The smaller the range of process you are capable of carrying out the less you can do with what you know.
3. Processing(intelligence) is a necessity but not enough. There are a series of Processes done in executing a plan. If you have no plan your interests are subject to those who do have a plan. Be that in using your ability to process knowledge to further their plans(not yours) or simply by your interests being displaced in the execution of their plans.
4. Plans are a necessity but not enough. Plans are simply a means to accomplishing a goal. If you have no goals in life your interests are subject to those who do have a goal. Be that in using your ability to plan and/or process knowledge to further their goals(not yours) or simply by your interests being displaced in the execution of their goals.
5. There are more but I can successfully reply without stating the rest


While I commend the Self haters for wanting better for themselves and Africa as a whole.

I question...
1.The range of knowledge they have at there disposal when coming to their stated positions
2.The range of processes they were able to employ on that knowledge.(Which led to their inability to make historically consistent positions)
3.The extent to which their self hate surrounding colonization impedes absorption, development, & execution of new knowledge and processes.